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Religion is about man’s response to God; Theology is about God and His plan for man.
Christians live disconnected lives because there is a huge gap between what they say they believe and how they live. Truth taken in (without determination to love the truth and be changed and transformed by it) winds up deadening the hearer.
Orthodoxy must be joined to orthopraxy. We must study theology in a doxological manner or it will ‘pickle’ us like formaldehyde.
Our culture has become even more hardened its rebellious commitment to autonomy. Because of Enlightenment principles and assumptions; morality has been increasingly divorced from theology. People treat ethics today as if morality can exist and be known apart from God. The Western concept of spirituality has encouraged a breach between spirituality and theology. In reality; theology is the foundation for all correct living; for living unto God; for the art of living to God’s glory. The study of theology ought to be a spiritual exercise. Ethics and doctrine are like Siamese twins; inseparable. Ethics is theology in action.
“Theology is the science of God and of the relations between God and the universe” A. H. Strong (Pettegrew, Ethics; Theology in Action, p. 4).
God’s goal in creating the universe was to share Himself with others. This is God’s universe. The emanation of God’s fullness of good is bound up in the knowledge of God; the holiness of God; and the happiness of the creature. God’s desire is that we will glorify Him by enjoying His ‘God-ness’. The unbeliever will ultimately glorify God by magnifying His justice—God will get glory from your life one way or the other because this is His universe. In Romans 11:33 ff. Paul is on top of a theological mountain. It is impossible to thwart God’s created purpose for the universe (Pettegrew, pp. 5, 6).
Only Christianity has a true ethical system based upon theology—we must teach, preach, and model the impact of theology on ethics—that’s our job. We are made in God’s image to be the likeness of God. This knowledge will cause us to view the Fall as incapacitating man so that he cannot, and will not, meet God’s ethical standards without divine grace (Pettegrew, p. 8).
Highlights from God in the Wasteland, by David Wells Jay Wegter, Editor (Abridged Version of Citations)
Intro. – The Church is enfeebled because it has lost the sense of God’s holiness and sovereignty. God rests too inconsequentially upon the Church – His truth is too distant, the gospel too easy, Christ too common. Divine transcendence has been abandoned for immanence (this produces a “faith” of little consequence).
26 – Evangelicalism increasingly saw itself as a “civil religion” that could help keep society in check in issues such as abortion, family values, prayer in school. Relevance in politics of the day replaced a passion for truth. Without God’s truth, both grace and judgment are lost. Evangelicalism exists as an informal religious establishment that derives its power from culture, not theology! In the last 30 years, there has been an almost complete decline of confessional interest.
28-29 – Protestant orthodoxy has been altered to fit an atmosphere of “pleasantness and light.” Churches are filled with those who wear a happy face, but who have no religious passions (see Jonathan Edwards, The Religious Affections). Modernity has twisted Evangelicalism to the point where interest in the truth of God is severely lacking. The therapeutic and managerial have replaced love of the truth.
44-45 – The biblical writers consistently wrote from a theocentric vantage point. Secular modernity is consistently anthropocentric. The anthropocentric is diametrically opposed to the theocentric. The foundational biblical truth is that all things receive their meaning from God; pluralism is godless because it denies that fact.
46-47 – The Enlightenment redefined all things in light of humanism; it took an anti- theocentric stance. Contemporary culture redefines human life as an impersonal genetic code, humans are less and less defined by choices.
55 – Today’s Evangelicals practice a religion wed to worldliness. Results are measured by “successful” entrepreneurship. Biblical truth is dislocated from life. Discernment is gone. The Church’s theological soul is dying as a result. The Church is no longer taking its bearings from God who is centrally holy.
56 – Evangelicalism, having abandoned theology, is running on the high octane fuel of modernity, therefore it cannot see the alien values inside it! In this condition, the Church cannot recognize or dislodge worldliness.
66-67 – Why has the 20th Century seen the “triumph” of Arminianism? ANSWER: In the “theology” of democracy, experience and testimony are authoritative. If theology is not translated into technique, people lose interest – legitimacy is only given to ideas that “work.”
69-71 – Evangelicalism’s new value system; remove the barriers to conversion, and you’ll get the numbers. McGavran’s formula for church growth is applied sociology. Raw pragmatism intrudes into churches where the confessional and the theological has faded. Whentheology is not at the center, managers and marketers will conduct the “business” of the Church.
90, 91 – With God relegated to the outer margins, the ear-tickling request becomes, “tell us about self.” Once God is excluded from reality – religion may be nothing more than a fascination with ourselves. How terrifying a possibility it is that the immanent may completely replace the transcendent. When the imminent alone is remaining, and it is psychologized, God’s reality becomes no different than our own! He is there to satisfy our needs – He has no real authority. Ultimately, He bores us.
94, 97 – Postmodernism eats away every transcendent reference point. There is no longer any meaning outside of self. Human potential becomes the disordered self in need of order. The empty, dismantled self (with its inner void), runs to psychology to fill it. Religion becomes completely based upon self.
103 – In the culture of modernity, the Creator-creature distinction is in trouble. The traditional biblical theism of God external instead of internal is falling apart.
105 – There is a new epistemology in religion – the “Kantian” mind superimposes its own opinions upon the data. The subjective triumphs over the objective; pluralism and deconstructionism reign. (Kant’s existentialism regarded the realm of absolutes to be totally “upper story,” or beyond reality.)
112, 113 – The culture of modernity is characterized by pride and self-absorption. People are so self occupied they refuse to hear anything that would disturb their intuition that they are correct about what is true and right. By contrast, the Bible declares that there is no redemption where self is in tyranny. The sovereignty of self destroys both church and worship. There is no recovery but by biblical doctrine.
114 – Modernity embraces a god who can be used. Psychologized culture has an affinity for the relational, but a “dis-ease” for the moral. The modern church wants the love of God, but not the holiness of God.
115 – There is trauma in retaining the Scriptural, theocentric God of grandeur. The radical reconstruction of self by God’s revealed doctrine is needed or the knowledge of the Holy One will not sink in. The cost of retaining the knowledge of God is ongoing repentance.
116, 117 – Objective truth in redemptive history is the revealer of who God is. God’s redemptive presence in truth and holiness are found only on His terms, not ours. We must have God transcendent in holiness, or we do not know Him!
118 – Modernity is appalled by the great things of God. Addiction to modernity can only be opposed by a mind steeped in the Word of God.
120-122 – Modernity dislocates the significance of God from life. God’s moral “otherness” is converted into relatedness. In the transition from transcendence to immanence, God becomes a convenient means to satisfy self. God’s “otherness” is increasingly lost in compromised Evangelicalism.
132, 134 – The only way to be God-centered is to be Christ-centered. Pluralism dislikes the exclusivity of Christ-centeredness. (The glorified Christ of eschatology who returns as Lord of history to judge the earth and consummate all things is assiduously avoided by modernity.) Disinterest in God’s holiness always results in a lack of interest in the pursuit of godliness and little interest in the reception of holiness from God.
135-138 – Victimhood is not interested in dwelling upon the holiness of God. God’s Word affirms that all God is and does is holiness. God’s holiness carries with it the demand of exclusive loyalty to Him. The experimental knowledge of God’s holiness should move us to awe, obedience, fervent prayer, ongoing repentance, and submission to His moral authority.
140, 141 – Burning purity and tenderness are joined in covenant. His holiness reveals sin. His holiness necessitates the work of Christ. God’s holiness and majesty belong together and interpret one another. His holiness is synonymous with His majesty in many passages (i.e. Ex 15:11).
142, 143 – There must be an echo of holiness in those who approach God. That echo manifests itself in separation and consecration unto God. God’s holiness is intrusive to the inner man. To approach God’s holiness is to have the life of the inner man invaded by light that exposes everything.
143, 144 – If holiness slips from a central position, then the centrality of Christ is lost. One cannot enter the knowledge of the Holy as a consumer, ONLY as a sinner. Sin, grace, and faith are emptied of meaning apart from the holiness of God.
145-148 – The implications of God’s holiness are missing in the Church. God’s authority and power are passé. Self is sovereign; authority now is only a private reference.
150, 151 – God’s Word is our only safety from heresy and modernity. Our safety resides in our passion for His holiness and His truth.
156 157 – The Enlightenment broke the connection between culture and religious truth. As a consequence, values are now shaped by modernization – the result is an existence of emptiness without meaning. Society’s values no longer come from the transcendent.
159 – Man without the transcendent has lost his roots in the world; pseudo freedom comes at an infinite cost – a palpable lostness pervades. There is no sense of God’s providence; it’s but a chance universe moving toward an uncertain end. By contrast, Christ is the Architect of providence. His cross is at the center of providence.
198-201 – After 1960, the veneration and fulfillment of self replaced an assessment of self of personal moral failure in need of rectification. The new ideology has taken command; we can find meaning only to the extent that we can get in touch with the self. Self expression has eclipsed self control. The mystical and the individualistic have created the soil of the therapeutic.
206 – The Church has lost its theological vision. Without theology she cannot know God as He is, and she cannot live aright unto Him. Theology is increasingly at odds with reality in the minds of seminary students (p. 208).
209-211 – Seminary students are increasingly attracted to immanence and not transcendence. Here are the consequences of immanence without transcendence: Fulfillment is achieved through the process of looking within. The disconformity in the world is internalized into privatized meaning. There is an increasing civility toward other religions (the exclusivity of the Gospel is minimized). The whole human nature is corrupt, but self is not. Self is innocent – self provides an accurate vantage point from which to interpret the world. With an ever increasing number of seminary students, contemporary assumptions have more control over the inner life and over world view than the Word of God (p. 212).
“The Coming Evangelical Crisis” Gary Johnson, Does Theology Still Matter? (pp. 57-73)
Today we have countless churches with operations directors/practitioners who do almost anything but make sense of the church’s theological message. For most students the Protestant Reformation had no more significance than the coronation of some European king hundreds of years ago.
John Donne’s remark is a most appropriate retort when students chafed at hearing Edwards’, “Sinner’s in the Hands of an Angry God,” “You must have a very mean and unworthy estimate of God if you stipulate that He ought to behave as you yourself would behave if you were God.” (Add Psalm 50 at this point.)
Theology has been marginalized as psychology and (doctrine-less) pietism has enthroned spiritual experience and the self. In the minds of many, theology fails the test of pragmatism; if practicality cannot be immediately discerned; then the doctrine is nothing but ‘never never land’ as one pastor quipped.
Theology is not merely intellectual training in orthodox propositions; theology is the vital knowledge of God which is intended to engage the whole person. The study of theology must be joined to vision for one’s life; and not merely the apprehension and mastering of more orthodox facts.
Theology is to be preached as well as taught; a certain Christian life grows under the preaching of good theology. They world has a bitter antipathy to biblical doctrine. And increasingly churches are manifesting indifference toward doctrinal precision. At the root of this indifference is dislike of doctrinal assertions lest they cause controversy. They fear controversy more than error. What is not seen as not worth defending is very soon seen as not worth professing.
Doctrinal apathy has taken Evangelicalism captive. But a pure Gospel is worth defending; because a mutilated Gospel produces mutilated lives. We are sadly experiencing subjectivism that betrays its weakened hold on objective truth and reality of Christianity. People are surrendering the whole substance of Christianity but not the name Christianity. Emphasis is placed on life; not dogma; on spiritual experience; not creed. But Christianity consists in doctrines that are facts and facts that are doctrines. Convictions anchored in doctrine are the root on which the tree of Christianity grows. There is a direct proportion between the following: no convictions; no Christianity; scanty convictions; hunger-bitten Christianity; profound convictions; solid and substantial religion. The knowledge of God is eternal life, and to know God means to know Him aright.
“What Happened to the Reformation?” From the chapter, “Evangelism Rooted in Scripture,” by Joel Beeke
[In Puritan times,] systematic theology was to the pastor what anatomy was to a physician. Only in light of the whole body of divinity could a minister provide a diagnosis of; prescribe for; and ultimately cure spiritual disease in those who were plagued by the body of sin and death (pp. 234, 235).
The Puritan preachers proclaimed the fact the mankind’s condition was one of moral rebellion against God. Our moral condition reaps eternal guilt; through the Fall we inherit depravity which makes us unfit for God, holiness, and heaven. Sinners have a bad record in heaven (a legal problem); and a bad heart (a moral problem). Both factors make us unfit for communion with God. No personal reformation can avail; nothing short of regeneration can reverse the problem (Jn 3:3-7). Puritan preachers offered Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King. They did not separate His benefits from His Person while ignoring His claims as Lord (ibid.).
We ourselves must be conquered by the mighty truths of God (p. 251).
“No Place for Truth” Whatever happened to Evangelical Theology? David Wells
7 – The effect of secularization has been to marginalize God and to make the transcendence of God irrelevant. The church has substituted the search for the knowledge of God with the search for the knowledge of self. There has been a net loss in the ability to think ‘Christian-ly’ about this world.
12 – True theology is driven by a passion for truth. 95, 96 -- The loss of theology has produced a shift from God to self; and from exposition in the pulpit to psychologizing. The reigning anti-theological mood is causing the church to lose her soul; she is severing her link to historical and Protestant orthodoxy.
108, 109 – Modernity is pouring into the vacuum left by an anti-theological mood. The result is a faith, unlike historic orthodoxy, that no longer defines itself theologically. Wherever modernity intrudes into the church; social space will be emptied of theology. Where theology is relegated to the periphery; it will lose its ability to define what evangelical life is.
136 – By banishing theology to the periphery (and not in the center of evangelical life) there is a resulting diminished sense of truth. Truth is only central in religious disposition when theology is close at hand. Nothing short of repentance needed to recover our theological soul. The erosion of truth will let in the tide of modernity. This is the issue: Who owns Evangelicalism?
It is the inextinguishable knowledge of being owned by the transcendent God that forms character; and His ownership challenges every other contender, including that of the modern world.
178 – Modernity’s influence is found in psychologizing which cuts the nerve of evangelical identity because the common assumption beneath the self movement is the perfectibility of human nature. This assumption is anathema to the Christian Gospel.
181 – Modernity is washing away our internal reality so that our capacity to think theologically is being emptied out. There is a profound correlation between the functioning of a substantial moral self and the ability to sustain a substantial theology that has moral force. The latter needs the former; the collapse of the former leads to the disappearance of the latter. Psychologizing undermines the desire and capacity to think, without which theology is obviously impossible. The psychologizing process identifies access to reality with subjective experience rather than objective thought.
182, 183 – The Evangelical church has succumbed to some of the seductive overtures which offer what is exciting over what is true. There is a resultant spreading wave of unreason. God’s place in the world is reduced to the domain of private consciousness; His external acts of redemption are trimmed to fit the experience of personal salvation; His providence in the world shrinks to whatever is necessary to having a good day; His Word becomes intuition; conviction fades into evanescent opinion. Theology becomes therapy—serving the therapeutic model of faith. Biblical interest is replaced by a search for happiness; holiness is replaced by a search for wholeness; truth is replaced by feelings; and ethics by feeling good about oneself. The past recedes; the church recedes; all that remains is self. Psychologizing of faith is destroying the Christian mind. Theology was written for the Church; when people are no longer compelled by God’s truth; they can be compelled by anything (cults and heresies find fertile soil).
216, 217 – Genuine leadership in the church is NOT finding out what everyone wants; it is a matter of teaching and explaining what has not been so well grasped, where the demands of God’s truths and culture pull in opposite directions. In the absence of public vision, it is easy to equate the norms of culture with the truths of God. Without real leaders we’ll be led by ‘pollsters’. Only theology can impart the vision of God which alone can sustain His people in the caldron of modernity. Theology is about seeing the gaping chasm that lies between truth and the nostrums of modernized society; and seeing how to practice that truth in this world. Without theology there is no faith; no believing; no Christian hope.
247 – Due to a professionalized clergy; we have allowed theology to be drained from the ministry—and at the same time expect the church to be nurtured in the knowledge of God. We laugh at those who think that theology is of vital importance; but then are shocked to find the superficial and unbelieving in our midst.
256 – God has been replaced by the church. The life of the church has produced a ‘surrogate truth’—so much so that this church life provides the justification for all theological learning. The skills and techniques for church management determine what theology should be studied; the priority is no longer the importance of the truth itself.
Strong winds are blowing in the church—winds of religious consumerism. And pastors are tailoring their ministries to meet the demands of the religious consumers. A genuinely biblical and God-centered ministry is almost certain to collide head-on with the self-absorption and anthropocentric focus that is now normative in so many evangelical churches.
261 – Modern worldviews have gone deep into the soul; they are wed to the psychology of our age. In much of Evangelicalism, our worldview is modern; it no longer allows us to think in terms of the supernatural or absolute truth as the biblical authors could—who proclaimed that God gives truth that is final and enduring.
288 – The citizens of our time believe so little in God because they believe in so much of what is modern. I believe so little in the modern world because I believe so much in the Transcendent, in God as sovereign and His Word as absolute. I believe in His power to actualize His truth in human life. Evangelicals who have bought into the priority of spiritual experience and self, may imagine themselves safe from modernism; but in reality are servile captives.
Evangelicals have lost their capacity for dissent; they stand on too easy terms with modernism. The requisite dissent arises out of the vision of God in His otherness, and this vision has now largely faded; a fact most obviously evidenced by the disappearance of theology in the evangelical Church.
296 – Evangelicalism has been too accommodating to modernity. As a consequence it has lost its traditional understanding of the sufficiency and centrality of God. It has turned from dependence on God tomanagement of God. Its inward looking self-confidence has produced an attempt to manage God. Surely this alienates us from Him; for God has never been managed or tamed. His sovereignty over the church is not subject to manipulation. The apparent ‘smoothness’ of God in the evangelical world is a sure sign that His truth in its purity and power is not driving evangelicalism.
299-301 – Modern experience does not provide access to God; God alone provides this access. It originates in His grace grounded in Christ Jesus. The experience of self has been made into an idol. Only the objectivity of God’s revealed truth can lead us back to Christ. In order to better diagnose the shallowness and poverty of the worldview of modernity; we must read the vastness of God’s purposes against the canvas of eternity. All of God’s purposes are in Christ. The Son of God brought everything into harmony with the holiness of God. To be sure; this harmony has two different expressions: justification and judgment. In both, the holiness of God comes into it full and awful expression. In the one case, it does so in Him who bears the consequences of that wrath on behalf of those He represents; in the other case, it is expressed in the final and awesome alienation of those in whom God’s judgment vindicates for all eternity His holiness. (God will fill creation with His holiness; His moral majesty; God’s will is going to be done on earth as it is in heaven.) This holiness of God without the cross is incomprehensible.
Under this bright light of God’s holiness, modernity is seen for the darkness it is. Modernity empties life of serious moral purpose—it removes the consciousness that reality is fundamentally moral. God’s holiness is fundamental to who He is; what He has done; and what He will do. The key to it all is that we have lost God’s otherness; His holiness and transcendence. (Evangelicalism has settled on God’s immanence; interpreting His immanence as friendliness with modernity.)
300, 301 – With the loss of God’s holiness; sin and grace become empty terms. Divorced from the holiness of God; worship becomes mere entertainment. In reality, sin is defiance of God’s holiness. God’s holiness is the very foundation of reality. The Cross is the outworking and victory of God’s holiness; and faith is the recognition of God’s holiness. Knowing God is holy is the key to knowing life as it truly is; and knowing why Christ came; and knowing how life will end.
301 – It is this God, majestic and holy in His being, this God whose love knows no bounds because His holiness knows know limits—this is the God who has disappeared from the modern evangelical world. The death of theology has profound ramifications; theology is dying because the church lost its capacity for it. This is a sign of creeping death. By imbibing modernism and rejecting theology; we have elected to cross over into a world in which God has no place; in which reality has been re-written; in which Christ has become redundant; His Word irrelevant; and the Church must now find new reasons for its existence.
301 – Unless the church can recover the knowledge of what it means to live before a holy God; unless its worship can relearn humility, wonder, love, and praise – unless it can find again a moral purpose in the world that resonates with the holiness of God – theology will have no place in its life. The church must find a place for theology by refocusing itself on the centrality of God and then rest on His sufficiency. Those who find the modern world most relevant will find the moral purpose of God most irrelevant. It is only those who are consumed by God’s moral purpose in the world who have much to say to the world. Orthodox facts must be connected to a life vision. Theology is essential because it constantly corrects our view of God. Man-centered religion is a ‘creeping force’ that is never idle. Theology is the only way to cultivate a high view of God.
Theology is the means of learning to love God with your whole mind. Because we live in a media culture;we are lazy intellectually; we fear to think anything in depth—we stay superficial. Theology stretches the mind and penetrates beyond our shallow thinking. God’s will and God’s mind must establish a mastery over your life (so much so that the Word of God dominates exceptionally over all of your life). Only then will you have a passion to know God; to love God; to do His will; to choose patterns of fellowship which manifest the knowledge of God.
Why does theology matter? A summary of the reasons why we study theology:
1.) To know what you believe; and why you believe it (from Scripture) is one of the best preparations for ‘rightly dividing the word of truth’ (2 Tim 2:15).
2.) Theology is simply the application of Scripture to all areas of life. Without theology, it is nearly impossible to attain a unified biblical life view. Theology tells us about God; about ourselves; about the world; and about our place in it.
3.) Theology is the study of God and His works; His ways; His wonders; and His will. The study of theology prepares us to live unto God.
4.) Theology teaches us to think doctrinally under the moral government of God; thus theology assists inuniting the heart so that we manifest a life direction that has moral force (Ps 86:11, 12).
5.) The study of theology develops a passion for truth in the heart of the believer.
6.) Theology equips us to contend for the truth (Jude 3). A ‘pure Gospel’ is worth defending. A mutilated gospel produces broken lives. Theology equips us to defend the faith (1 Tim 4:6; 6:3, 4).
7.) Theology gives us the tools necessary to diagnose the prevalent errors of our culture. The study of doctrine provides a ‘lens’ to give us an informed compassion for the lost.
8.) The study of theology equips us to love God with the entire mind.
9.) Theology is a constant corrective; it keeps us from man-centered religion and man-centered philosophy. Theology lets us behold God as He is; not as we imagine Him to be. Thus, the study of theology instills in us high views of God in His holiness; sovereignty; and transcendence.
10.) Theology cultivates the religious affections; in so doing, it teaches us to study ‘doxologically’ (in a spirit of worship). The study of theology gives us the truths in a systematic fashion. The truths of Christ’s supremacy are designed to emotionally stagger us; without theology there is no awe of God.
11.) Theology unites every discipline and every field of knowledge. As Christians, our only philosophy of history is theology! Theology connects truth to life. Theology joins the character of God to morals and ethics.
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The Three Essential ‘Chords’ of True Worship (Isaiah 6:1-8)
In our culture of mass consumerism; we live with the incessant demand to match needs with people and products – this destroys interest in the transcendence of God (David Wells).
As a result; so much of religion has been tainted with marketing; and squeezed through the ‘die of consumerism’. I’m reminded of ancient Tyre; the marketplace of nations; the prototype of economic Babylon—Tyre was an international shopping mall where one could buy everything from jewelry to slaves to fleets of ships to mercenary armies.
The stench of pride from the city of Tyre ascended all the way to heaven—the king of Tyre made his heart like the heart of God (the Scripture says). The city was a breeding ground for the pride of life—its citizens made their living off of satisfying every imaginable wish of consumers.
Like Tyre of old; so much of our culture is addicted to mass consumption—consumers sit as king—they vote with their dollars—the rise and fall of corporations hangs upon our spending habits.
Consumers (flattered by constant advertising) live the illusion that they are meeting their own needs through human resources. But what is normalized in our society; a culture that worships consumption; is a monstrous aberration. Bunyan called it what is really is; the City of Destruction hurtling into hell.
Churches have not been unaffected by the idol of consumerism. To stem the exodus of members—many have tailored Christianity to consumerism. We have full-service churches competing for members—people choosing on the basis of who delivers the goods in the most efficient and winsome manner. In the process, the “otherness” of God is domesticated; He is reduced to harmless. God is no longer understood as standing outside the sinner, summoning him to repentance. By contrast, the God of Scripture calls the sinner to repent and (by the knowledge of Almighty God), be emancipated from the deception of external appearances (appearances which the unbeliever regards as reality).
Is this a dream or a nightmare to be in church as a religious consumer? As Bible-believing Christians; I think your answer would be the latter. Consumerism has reshaped worship.
Because modernity is appalled by the great things of God; worship has been redefined—it is no longer the humbled sinner falling at the feet of his Savior in wonder; love; awe; and repentance—it is about the self; my experience of worship; my fulfillment; my security; my blessing; my psyche salved and comforted.
Dear people I’m telling you what you already know—no one has ever come as a consumer to God—and then truly worshipped. God cannot be used—consumer and worshipper are antithetical terms. What distinguishes a worshipper from a consumer? A true worshipper knows God as He truly is.
Isaiah 6 puts into bold relief the three notes (or chords) that comprise true worship:
1.) God is majestic, transcendent Creator.
2.) He is the Holy One, Lawgiver, righteous Judge.
3.) He is merciful Redeemer.
There is an echo of all three of these in true worship (wonder at His majesty, reverence for His holiness; and awe at His redeeming mercy).
ISAIAH 6:1-8:
1 In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. 2 Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called out to another and said, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory." 4 And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.
5 Then I said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. 7 He touched my mouth {with it} and said, "Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven." 8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I. Send me!" (NASB)
Isaiah’s vision was granted at a significant turning point in Judah’s history. The prophet Isaiah served under the reign of four different kings of Judah; Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. The vision given to Isaiah recorded in Isaiah 6 took place around the last year of Uzziah’s life (6:1).
Under the reign of Uzziah there had been a period of great prosperity in Judah (2 Chronicles 26:5-15). Once Uzziah’s fame had spread afar after so much help from God, the king’s heart became proud (2 Chronicles 26:15-16).
His pride led him into corrupt actions; He presumed upon the Levitical priesthood. Though not a Levite; he took to himself the sacred privilege of burning incense in the temple; Uzziah broke the type of Christ depicted by the priests; he sought unmediated worship of God.
In so doing, the king exposed his own polluted, leprous and tainted being. In affect his actions said, “I do not need a Savior!” (As believers safe in the New Covenant the formula for our worship is still, “through Him,”let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God (Heb 13:15a).
Eighty-one courageous Levites confronted Uzziah concerning his sin (2 Chronicles 26:17, 18). As a divine judgment, leprosy broke out on the face of the King during his prideful act. Subsequently the king was cut off from the House of the Lord and lived in a separate dwelling until the day of his death (2 Chronicles 26:19-21).
On Uzziah’s sarcophagus reads the following Aramaic inscription, “Hence were brought the bones of Uzziah, King of Judah, and not to be opened.” The final prohibition in that epitaph is a mute testimony to the danger and disgrace of leprosy (in modern vernacular, warning would read, biohazard!).
Uzziah’s end marked the passing of a golden age of both physical blessing and spiritual vigor in Judah. Isaiah saw that such a decline in leadership would lead to the moral decay of the nation. In addition, the Syrian threat was already edging the people toward panic (Isaiah 7:2). Those foreboding circumstances weighed heavily upon the discouraged prophet.
It was a signal mercy that Isaiah was granted a life-transforming vision of the majesty of God (Isaiah 6:1). For the heavy-hearted prophet knew he would have to face a spiritually weak and decaying Judah. As the prophet kneels in prayer at the temple in Jerusalem, God graciously gives to him a life-changing vision of His glory. Such a vision of God’s majesty must have assured the prophet that Yahweh reigned in omnipotence from His heavenly throne. Worshipped by mighty angelic beings, God was seen as executing His government with perfect wisdom and power.
What a comfort this must have been to the prophet who was witness to the apparent triumph of wickedness on earth.
Isaiah’s vision opened up the prophet’s understanding to the overpowering holiness of God. So great was the impact of God’s holiness upon Isaiah that subsequently it becomes a frequent theme in his message. (So much of the book of Isaiah is the cure of spiritual declension by the sight of God’s majesty. The counsel of the divines to their understudies still applies today; read and re-read the book of Isaiah until you have a sight of the majesty of God.)
Subsequent to his vision; the prophet loves to speak of “The Holy One of Israel.” This divine title is used 26 times in the book of Isaiah.
Isaiah 6 is a record of the prophet’s vision; of his interaction with God’s throne room. Though not an exact model to be reproduced in the saint; much of Isaiah 6:1-8 does contain the three elements common to biblical worship (outlined in Scripture).
During his vision, Isaiah moves from reverent spectator (6:1-4) to confounded responder (6:5), to grateful recipient (6:6,7), to eager servant 6:8). Each of these spiritual postures exhibited by the prophet demonstrates the outworking of both God’s holiness recognized and God’s person contemplated.
There are Principles of worship and Prayer That Flow From a Proper Contemplation of God. It is not possible to worship God aright unless He is contemplated as He truly is (John 4:24). “[True] religion begins when we realize our dependence on the absolute, infinite Being, the eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient God” (Geerhardus Vos).
As the prophet Isaiah lifts his soul to God, three distinct notes make up the chord of his response to God’s attributes. These three “notes” are essentials of true worship; God’s majesty as Creator/Ruler; His burning holiness; His redeeming grace.
I. The first of these three notes is enraptured contemplation of God’s perfection(s) (6:1). The phrase, “The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity,” is a phrase from Isaiah 57:15 that encapsulates God’s transcendental or metaphysical attributes. As finite creatures, we are to reflect upon this unfathomable subject of God’s transcendence. Though it is impossible for us to adequately think out the concept of God’s greatness, it is the first essential element in the contemplation of God. It was the first note struck in Isaiah’s vision. And it is the first step in stirring his soul to deep worship.
We could say that this first essential note of worship is ‘cosmic’ – for we are to contemplate God in His transcendence and grandeur; namely that He is above time, space, and nature. He says of Himself, “I am that I am.” In that statement to Moses; God is saying that He cannot be equated with anything on earth. He is self-existent; self-determined; self-contained; and self-defined. He gives meaning and existence to all other things in the created order. (How infinite the gulf between self-existence and finite creature!)
We are His thought stamped upon clay. We have no independent foundation in our own being. God, by constant command, holds all things together. He sustains the principle of life in all living things. If He withdrew His Spirit; there would be an immense collective sigh as every living thing perished and returned to the dust from which it came. (For from Him, through Him, and to Him are all things.)
In coming to God in worship it is incumbent upon the believer to affirm the creature-Creator distinction. For we are not adequately humbled until that infinite gulf between flesh and Spirit is reverently considered (Isaiah 40:6; Psalm 100:3). It is our work in worship to bring our hearts low before Him.
Dear people, we tend to put God in a religious compartment – we are gradually blinded to His majesty; we cease to see Him as Lord of the cosmos; Lord of history and providence. At times it takes a crisis – God breaks into the little hut of sticks we have built; He seeks to deliver us from that deadening habit of bringing your religious self to the small God we have shrunk to fit in religious compartment.(EXAMPLE: without theexpanded vision of seeing God’s majesty; our vision is narrow—like trying to look at the Milky Way through a keyhole—you only see a few stars.)
A fresh sight of God’s majesty is all about perspective and vantage point; about the recovery of Divine View Point. Consider the view from an airliner – at 20,000 feet you can see individual vehicles; but you cannot see people—when flying I try to get a window seat to remind me of how I would look from 20,000 feet – totally insignificant!
Regarding the grandeur of God—recent images back from the Hubble telescope have shocked even the most seasoned astronomers. One was heard saying, “We are seeing structures more fantastic than we could possibly have imagined” There are massive fingers of glowing gas and dust—if you traveled at the speed of light; you would not traverse them in a lifetime.
If this is God’s “finger-work,” then surely in His predestinating wisdom and counsels; He has written the prayers of His people, and the answers to those prayers into His eternal decree. Surely He has cast His attributes and faithfulness into the promises of the Gospel. Surely He has woven the tears and sighs; losses and crosses of His blood-bought people into His master plan to conform us into the image of His Son.
Says author David Wells:
Today we are afflicted with a cultural Christianity that is for the most part blind to divine majesty. Divine transcendence has been abandoned for immanence which produces a “faith” of little consequence. Modernity is appalled by the great things of God. There is trauma in retaining the God of grandeur. The cost of retaining the knowledge of God is ongoing repentance.
In our repentance; we’ll need to cultivate a sense of wonder concerning God’s grandeur. There are countless access points to the grandeur of God; the Psalms are full of them.
It’s difficult to think of a believer with more negative circumstances than Job. He lost family; possessions; health; and the loyalty of friends. Yet when God is about to heal and restore him; He begins by giving him a sight of divine majesty.
He asks Job questions about hawks, whales; mountain goats, ice, geology, and thunderstorms (Job 38-41). God ‘heals’ Job’s troubled spirit by a sight of His majesty.
In our own meditations; we are plunged into a sense of wonder when we take the time to ask questions about God’s creation and His rule over it: Consider the multitude of finely tuned parameters that permit life on earth—our planet’s size, distance from sun, ratio of gases, axis, length of day, ratio of elements, percentage of water, depth of the atmosphere. Change even one of these and there is no life as we know it.
I ask myself; when was the last time I was lost in awe, wonder, love and praise when contemplating the grandeur of God? (EXAMPLE: Only God could make a lumpy caterpillar into a multicolored creature that sips nectar and rides the wind. – we are jaded by our media-saturated culture; and by over-scheduled lives; we need to recover a sense of wonder at the works of God in order to ‘see’ His majesty again.)
When you walk and pray; and come upon an insect; a bird; a lizard; ask, “Lord how does this little creature in front of me recognize its food; its mate; its enemies; its hiding places—all without training? How is its body constructed in secret from a tiny speck of an egg? Say along with Job, “These things are too wonderful for me”(Job 42:3). I quickly reach the end of competence when I try to figure them out. Lord, I joyfully bow before your infinite wisdom.
The majesty of God overturns any residual attempts on our part to come to God as consumers. (We’ve seen our first chord of worship—divine majesty; that worship begins with the spiritual sight of God’s majesty.)
II. The second note struck (of the three) is the contemplation of God’s holiness or moral majesty (vv. 6:2-5). God’s moral glory (or holiness) is the ground of His being. His holiness is synonymous with His divinity. “God’s glory is His holiness made manifest.”
The angels do not call out, eternal, eternal, eternal, or, faithful, faithful, faithful. The angels who called out “holy, holy, holy,”—they were sinless creatures yet they covered their faces and feet. (6:2,3). Holy angels did not look at God eye to eye; their eyes did not meet their Creator’s – the message is God must bring us to Himself. He is unapproachable in the sense that no creature has seen or will see His full glory—they couldn’t bear it. God allows proximity (or closeness); but never full revelation.
God’s holiness is revealed in the exercise of every single attribute—in every action, in everything He decrees, in every contact with His creatures, whether mercy or judgment, His holiness is manifested (Psalm145:17). God has no degree of holiness, His holiness is absolute. There is an infinite moral gulf between creature and Creator. Moral majesty is innately His; by contrast the most holy creature has only aderived or created holiness.
The quaking temple filling with smoke (6:4) is reminiscent of the manifestation God made of Himself on Mt. Sinai. The congregation under Moses in the wilderness at the base of smoking Sinai was deeply affected; they trembled in terror, but not in awe and reverence.
Says Warfield, “It is pre-eminently the holiness of God that constitutes the terror of the Lord . . . . Sinful man cannot be incited to holy activity by the sight of holiness; it begets no longing in his heart but to hide himself away from it.”
Edwards makes a similar observation, “Only redeemed men see the beauty of God’s moral perfection. The first glimpse of God’s moral glory shining into the heart produces an affect that nothing can withstand. Natural men may be greatly affected by God’s greatness; but it is only saints and angels that see the beauty of God’s holiness. He who sees the beauty of God’s holiness must necessarily see the hatefulness and evil of sin.”
Often believers make a habit of beginning their prayers with no acknowledgement of who God is. Where such a spirit of haste, and unpreparedness exist; there is often little incentive for worship and confession of sin. We need to begin with the contemplation of who God is in His majesty and holiness. David Wells addresses the problem,
The Church is enfeebled because it has lost the sense of God’s holiness and sovereignty. God rests tooinconsequentially upon the Church – His truth is too distant, the gospel too easy, Christ too common. God’s redemptive presence in truth and holiness are found only on His terms, not ours. We must have God transcendent in holiness, or we do not know Him!
Since the Fall, God’s holiness is the attribute of God most hated by the apostate creature. Fallen man has enmity toward God’s holiness—sinners wish to depart from the intensity of the light of God’s moral majesty. It is unbearable to sinners that God eternally hates sin and that He has manifested His holy character in His laws. The ungodly man dreams of a land without God’s laws; he dreams of a permanent moral vacation (some clever copywriters have turned this heart sentiment of sinners into ads for Las Vegas).
By contrast; the child of God has holy longings; he is attracted to holiness; ravished by it; amazed by the beauty of God’s holiness; drawn to its light.
The foundations and thresholds of the temple trembled at the voice of him who called out; and the temple was filling with smoke (v. 6:4). Smoke speaks of fire; of the burning purity of God’s holiness.
Oh consider that God is a consuming fire; He is determined to consume as a furnace—everything and everyone that is not like Him in holiness. Grace is not a plan to get you to heaven without holiness. Sin makes the wicked highly combustible. It makes the wicked into grapes of wrath to be tread down; intothorns and chaff to be burned.
And what are we to make of the shaking? The present created order will remain ONLY until God’s purposes are complete. Then God will shake to powder every human institution so that His Son (with the redeemed) might inherit a Kingdom which cannot be shaken; a kingdom in which righteousness dwells.
Notice in our text that God’s holiness is incredibly invasive to the soul of a man. When His holiness invades; there is trauma (6:5). Isaiah’s response is personal devastation. He pronounces woes upon himself; a curse upon himself. His conscience is burdened by a sight of his Creator’s holiness.
This is more than the weight of guilt alone; it is the devastating consciousness that the moral life he lives before God is offensive to divine holiness. Put yourself in Isaiah’s sandals for a moment, “I thought I was doing o.k.; I imagined that in my religious self I was a profitable servant; that my religious duties were acceptable to God. But I have looked over the brink; I have caught a glimpse of the infinite gulf between God’s holiness and my own deformity. I am undone, annihilated; destroyed – a cumberer of the earth waiting to be swept from God’s creation like some unclean thing. My lips are too impure to utter the words the angels are uttering; if I were to say them—it would be like pouring spring water from a garbage pail.”
Understanding God’s holiness is a prerequisite to understanding the heinousness of our own sin and our need for redemption through Christ.
Have you ever come face to face with the fact that your religious self fights against the trauma of God’s holiness? We steer away from the trauma of holiness by lowering the market—by allowing our hearts to set up a religious standard that is achievable in the flesh; Why? Because we are unwilling to be smitten by the sight of God’s holiness.
The contemplation of God’s holiness may produce a devastating awareness of personal sin. Isaiah’s response to the sight of God’s holiness was personal devastation and self-condemnation. He pronounced woes upon himself (6:5). The prophet’s conscience was burdened by the sight of God’s holiness. The knowledge of divine holiness brought trauma with it. “No man begins to assess his own moral deformity until he is presented with God’s moral majesty” (Stephen Charnock).
Isaiah’s sense of personal unholiness terminated upon his organs of speech, the lips (6:5). After beholding God’s holiness, he assesses himself a moral wreck who deserves to be swept from God’s universe along with all other things that are corrupt and impure. His mouth is unfit to join in the angelic song.
Beholding God’s holiness involves an attitude of penitence that invites God’s examination of us (Psalm 139:23,24). Our natural desire is to shield ourselves from a sense of judgment and moral failure. The whole bent of our nature is to lower the standard of righteousness to a humanly achievable level. But, beholding God’s holiness in worship devastates our craving for personal merit—it withers our self-righteousness. It casts us upon God in Christ for all our standing before Him (Philippians 3:9).
In order to abandon our twig hovels of dead works; we will have to be rocked; staggered; even devastated by the sight of God’s holiness. Calvin remarks concerning this poverty of spirit, “It is necessary that the godly should be affected in this manner, when the Lord gives tokens of his presence, that they may be brought low and utterly confounded.”
God meets the humble and contrite. That posture of heart is vital in worship; God has promised to manifest His presence to those who come to Him in a lowly and penitent spirit (Isaiah 57:15). Isaiah entered the dark tunnel of personal devastation over his sin. God met him there, revived his spirit. He was lifted to a place of awe and joy. God graciously brought His servant out of that dark tunnel (He will do the same for you).
Our responsibility is to see that the heart postures of humility, contrition and fear of God are formed in us (Isaiah 66:1,2).
Geerhardus Vos is so helpful here, “God has chosen the conditions of humility and contrition to prepare a man to receive the presence of God in his soul. These conditions have no merit in themselves. They merely constitute the godly response to the loftiness, holiness, eternal glory, and divinity of God.”
What a contrast to shielding self from judgment. The devastation that the natural man assiduously shuns, the spiritual man is willing to experience. The godly are willing to feel ruined, devastated, and undone over their sin. They welcome deep conviction of sin knowing that God delights in drawing near the contrite and in reviving their spirits (Psalm 147:3; 57:15).
Isn’t it ironic that those who seek to be constantly happy by avoiding lowliness and contrition should find that true joy is unattainable. By contrast, the contrite believer proves as Isaiah did that God is able to melt dread into love and to bring reverence, awe and adoration out of devastation (Isaiah 6:6-8).
Let us be honest about what holds us back from contemplating God’s holiness. We wall off our sin and defeat and pronounce ourselves spiritually sound because we have the grace of God. We take solace in the fact that we are Reformed in doctrine, hold to believers’ baptism, practice the regulatory principle of worship—our orthopraxy is precise; we are icons of correctness.
But the real truth is that we will not worship aright and enjoy the sense of His presence if our sin stays in place. Unconfessed “Christian” sins such as resentment; an unforgiving spirit; gossip; a critical spirit; grumbling; joylessness; pride; doubt and unbelief; selfishness; and pettiness must be confessed—not walled off—if we are to draw near to God.
Dear people; those willing to be devastated by a sight of divine holiness have the assurance that they will be personally comforted by God Himself (Is 57:15). Confession and repentance are acts of worship. Isaiah’s right apprehension of God provides the correct apprehension of himself. Repentance comes from contemplating your sin in the light of God’s holiness.
There is much encouragement in this passage; God never leaves His precious child in that dark tunnel of contrition—God takes delight in reviving the spirit of the contrite. Those who descend into humble broken-hearted repentance over sin are personally comforted by God. The fact that God consumes all that is not like Him in holiness drives us to Christ (fleeing for refuge in Him).
A willingness to be confounded over divine holiness and personal sin is the very opposite of self-shielding; self-protection; and self-justifying behavior. You see those are the activities of the “religious self.”
The religionist is always about the business of protecting himself from God (and using religion to do so)—it is evidence that he never really makes it a habit of taking full refuge in Christ. By contrast, the true worshipper revels in God’s moral majesty. We have seen the first two chords of true worship: divine majesty; and divine holiness.
III. The third note struck in the 3 chords of worship is self-surrender to God’s redemptive mercy.
The contemplation of God’s holiness may produce a devastating awareness of personal sin. Isaiah’s response to the sight of God’s holiness was personal devastation and self-condemnation. He pronounced woes upon himself (6:5). The prophet’s conscience was burdened by the sight of God’s holiness. The knowledge of divine holiness brought trauma with it. No man begins to assess his own moral deformity until he is presented with God’s moral majesty (Charnock).
Isaiah’s sense of personal unholiness terminated upon his organs of speech, the lips (6:5). After beholding God’s holiness, he assesses himself a moral wreck who deserves to be swept from God’s universe along with all other things that are corrupt and impure. His mouth is unfit to join in the angelic song.
Once Isaiah condemned himself at the sight of God’s holiness (6:5), God’s redeeming grace hastened to meet his need. The red-hot coal applied to Isaiah’s lips (6:6,7.) The coal originated at the altar of blood sacrifice according to Leviticus 16:12. Therefore, that burning coal symbolized the total significance of the altar from which it came. That is, the penalty of his sin had been covered by the bloody death of a substitute (Leviticus 1:3, 4, 4:20, 26, 35)—the coal ultimately symbolized the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice.
The blessedness of redemption received is contained in the marvelous truth that God actually proposes to share His holiness with us (Hebrews 12:10). Never did divine holiness appear more beautiful than in the redemption accomplished through Messiah’s death (Stephen Charnock).
“God draws back the veil and exhibits His holiness to His children. In so doing He incites them to be holy also, holding His own holiness as the standard which they must strive to attain (1 Peter 1:16). By exhibiting His holiness to us in redemption, it is a pledge that His children shall certainly attain to it” (B. B. Warfield).
It is God’s redemptive grace we must appeal to in prayer as we pursue holiness (Hebrews 4:16). For His love, compassion and initiative in sending Christ is the warranty of all future grace promised to the saint (Romans 8:32).
The contemplation of redemption produces overflowing gratitude and thanksgiving in the child of God (Colossians 1:12-14, 2:6, 7). This attitude of thanksgiving is to fill all of our worship and prayers (Colossians 3:17).
God’s constraining love and compassion are seen in His promise to send Messiah ( Isaiah 53). God’s incarnate son would span not only the infinite ontological gulf that exists between Creator-creature (self-existent God and created flesh); but also the infinite moral gulf between God and sinner (Isaiah 9:6, 53:6).
Through the redemption found in Christ the sinner becomes acceptable to God and is thereby enabled to delight in the beauty of God’s holiness (Revelation 4:1-8). God has bared His holy arm in our salvation (52:10). Oh we will never grow weary of the incredible theme that God has chosen to reveal His awful uncompromising holiness in the recovery and restoration of sinners through Christ.
God’s holiness is most beautiful to us in the death of Christ—God was pleased to bruise Him; crush Him; make Him a curse for us; to make Him sin for us that we might be right with the God of all holiness. In the propitiation of the cross; God’s holiness is beautiful to us—it ravishes our souls. Christ melts our dread of God into love; He brings us near for all eternity. By His cross He makes blood-washed sinners acceptable to God and He makes God’s holiness beautiful to us. From the blessed safety of Christ’s wounds; God’s people will forever gaze upon the beauty of God’s holiness.
In the Gospel we discover that God has passed a portion of His perfections to the creature. (Note the passages that speak of God imparting a portion of His perfections to the redeemed: 2 Peter 1:4 we are partakers of His divine nature; Hebrews 12:12 we share in His holiness; 2 Thess 2:14 we gain the glory of Christ Jesus).
God is giving Himself to us in Christ. The ongoing reception of Christ produces a reflexive love and worship back to God.
Beholding God’s holiness ought to be accompanied by an attitude of penitence that invites God’s examination of us (Psalm 139:23,24). Our natural desire is to shield ourselves from a sense of judgment and moral failure. The whole bent of our nature is to lower the standard of righteousness to a humanly achievable level. But, beholding God’s holiness is an aspect of worship that is accompanied by a willingness to be smitten by the sight of God’s burning purity—it’s never an academic exercise; never the activity of a consumer or a spectator.
Such a view of God flattens our craving for personal merit and withers our self-righteous contamination of duty. It casts us upon God alone for all our standing before Him (Philippians 3:9).
Calvin remarks concerning such poverty of spirit, “It is necessary that the godly should be affected in this manner, when the Lord gives tokens of his presence, that they may be brought low and utterly confounded.”
God meets the humble and contrite. Such a posture of heart is vital in worship, for God has promised to manifest His presence to those who come to Him in a lowly and penitent spirit (Isaiah 57:15). Isaiah entered the dark tunnel of personal devastation over his sin. God met him there, revived his spirit. He was lifted to a place of awe and joy. God graciously brought His servant out the other side of that dark tunnel.
Our responsibility is to see that the heart postures of humility, contrition and fear of God are formed in us (Isaiah 66:1,2). “God has chosen the conditions of humility and contrition to prepare a man to receive the presence of God in his soul. These conditions have no merit in themselves. They merely constitute the godly response to the loftiness, holiness, eternal glory, and divinity of God” (Vos).
The discomfort that the natural man assiduously shuns, the spiritual man is willing to experience. The godly are willing in their contrition to feel ruined and undone over their sin. They welcome deep conviction of sin knowing that God delights in drawing near the contrite and in reviving their spirits (Psalm 147:3).
If we seal off and wall off our moral failure and spiritual defeat—it will not come in contact with the blood of Christ. We all know what that building material consists of that we use to shelter our personal sin (deadness; selfishness, lovelessness)—we conceal our sin behind our orthodoxy; our theology; our outward morality.
Isn’t it ironic that those who seek to be constantly happy by avoiding lowliness and contrition find that true joy is unattainable. If you want everything sunny and bouncy; joy will evade you—for joy is a byproduct of God’s holiness holding sway in the conscience.
The contrite believer understands this; he proves as Isaiah did that God is able to melt dread into love and to bring reverence, awe and adoration out of devastation (Isaiah 6:6-8).
If holiness slips from a central position, then the centrality of Christ is lost. One cannot enter the knowledge of the Holy as a consumer, ONLY as a sinner. Sin, grace, and faith are emptied of meaning apart from the holiness of God.
The blood of Christ is not a commodity that exists separate from His Person. Those who flee to Christ’s blood for daily cleansing are dealing with Christ Himself—communing with Him; willing to be searched by Him; subject to Him; ruled by Him; consenting to His love; walking in the light of His countenance; craving to know Him better; striving to please Him; and animated by the awareness that they are utterly beholden (obligated) to Him forever.
This third chord of worship is lived out as surrender to God’s redemptive purposes in a man’s life. The members of your body; your faculties of soul and heart are happily captive of God’s will and commands. God’s cause—to glorify Himself in the Church, is your cause. God’s cause to prepare a people in Christ for glory is your cause.
Isaiah’s response to confession and cleansing of sin is eagerness for service to God. Through confession and cleansing of sin, Isaiah was equipped for praise, for intercessory prayer and for the proclamation of God’s Word.
There is an unspeakable sense of peace and joy when a man’s conscious life is rightly adjusted to the nature, the claims and the purposes of God (Vos, p. 264).
Isaiah’s overflowing gratitude made him willing to serve God from the heart. As E. J. Young observes, Isaiah 6 illustrates why so few are willing to serve God. They lack the conviction of sin. This lack precludes both confession of sin and service to God. “Only when a man has been convicted of sin and has understood that the Redeemer has borne the guilt of his sin is he willing and ready joyfully to serve God.”
A. W. Tozer makes a similar observation, “[Fruitfulness results from] the plowed life . . . that has, in the act of repentance thrown down the protecting fences and sent the plow of confession into the soul.”
Isaiah’s worshipful response to God is no doubt a grateful reaction to God’s forgiving grace. The phrase “who will go for us . . .” (6:8) makes it clear that the prophet is accepting not a single opportunity to serve but the challenge of a commitment to service.
Ongoing contemplations of God’s majesty equip a man for worship
and service. The transforming power of God’s majesty is impressed upon the soul by meditation and prayer. It is evident from Isaiah’s preaching that the vision of God’s majesty was an enduring theme in his meditations (Isaiah 26:7-13; 40:12-21; 42:5-9; 43:1-21).
Vos notes just how fully Isaiah was consumed with the majesty of God. “What else but the great thought of God supernaturally introduced into the soul of this man produced that untold wealth of spiritual power which even the world hostile as it is to divine truth, cannot help honoring when it puts him with the most illustrious examples of religious genius in all ages?”
“Isaiah’s devotional life was exemplary, for “his mind was filled to overflowing with the thought of God. Isaiah’s warm spiritual glow so uniformly present in all his preaching [was] kindled at the altar-fire and kept forever burning in his soul by this vision of the divine glory” (Vos).
“The things of true religion take hold of men’s souls only to the degree that they engage the affections. The God Isaiah contemplated was the God Isaiah loved (Isaiah 61:10, 11). The message he preached of God’s infinite majesty, holiness, wisdom, goodness and mercy was addressed to the affections” (Edwards).
Isaiah presents his readers and listeners with the divine vantage point. The book of Isaiah, like no other, raises the reader to behold the majesty of God. The prophet’s message has the profound ability to inspire awe of God.
Conclusion:
We’ve seen what the sight of God’s majesty does to the saint—and how true worshippers long to have their hearts tuned to God by these three essential chords of worship. Will you insist on these three chords in your own worship of God? – that heaven might say of you, “That man; that woman worships in Spirit and in Truth.”
We’ve seen that the three chords: God in His majesty; Almighty Creator and Ruler; God the Holy One of Israel; and God in Christ reconciling us to Himself complete the three notes found in true worship.
We must behold God as He truly is if we are to worship Him in Spirit and Truth. In beholding God in His Word; a man’s conscious life becomes “adjusted” to God’s nature; claims; and purposes. It takes us off ourselves; lifts us above self-interest, animates our worship. How we need the perspective of God’s throne room as our vantage point.
All of our blessedness, well-being, and happiness are advanced by divine holiness taking hold of the creature. Thus we constantly affirm—He makes us happy by making us holy.
We love and honor Him by pursuing holiness. His command to us to be morally perfect is argued from our gaining a sight of His perfections; His holy character. Manifest the purity of My nature by holiness in your lives – 1 Pet 1:15-16).
There must be an echo of holiness in those who approach God. That echo manifests itself in separation and consecration unto God. God’s holiness is intrusive to the inner man. To approach God’s holiness is to have the life of the inner man invaded by light that exposes everything. But those who worship in contrition have the precious promise that God will dwell with them; revive them; and make His presence known to them:
“For thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose Name is Holy, I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15).
Amen!